


And the Evening and the Morning Were the Third Day

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Oz (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-12-21
Updated: 2003-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 06:08:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1635653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tobias Beecher's third day in Oz.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And the Evening and the Morning Were the Third Day

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Gemma Files

 

 

"And the evening and the morning were the third day" 

* 

7 AM. 

Genevieve always wakes him up gently, one hand on his back, her smiling face there for him when he wakes up. And she always is smiling, even when things weren't so good between them the night before. 

No alarm clock, no blaring radio, just her hand on his shoulder and he wakes up. 

As he shifts groggily he realizes the pillow smells odd--harsh, chlorine-laden--and the fabric is rough. "Hon, what..." 

"Yes, buttercup?" 

As the hand on his shoulder slips down to his ass he realizes--finally--that he is not at home, and that is not his wife. Schillinger cups his hand around Beecher's buttock and _squeezes_ and Beecher screams into the rough fabric of his pillow as the PA blares "COUNT" and the lights come on. 

Schillinger smiles at him, pats his cheek, stands and walks to the door, saying "Bitcher, come on--breakfast!" over his shoulder. 

"No," Beecher growls before his mind kicks in. Maybe he shouldn't be growling at the one man between him and a worse fate. 

Schillinger explained things last night. 

But Schillinger doesn't hold it against him, or doesn't seem to. "Suit yourself." 

"SHAKEDOWN," shouts the guard, and then he's prodded out of bed by another guard, made to stand on the landing, sniffed by a dog. He looks down at the German shepherd's friendly face and can't help but say "Good dog." 

Schillinger laughs and shakes his shoulder. His ass throbs with fire at every beat of his heart. 

Finally Beecher can go back to bed. His pictures are rifled across the small desk; he sticks them under his mattress. 

He doesn't want anyone looking at them. 

Gary and Holly and Harry and Gen. 

Gary and Holly and Harry and Gen... 

8 AM. 

The cell door opens and Beecher wakes up again. "I brought you a banana," Schillinger says, tossing the fruit onto the bed beside him. 

Beecher looks up at him. Schillinger smiles. "Thank you," Beecher says. 

It's so--civil--he thinks he must be dreaming again. 

"You look a little pale," Schillinger says. "Maybe you should see a doctor." 

\--doctors help, doctor can HELP HIM, make this end-- 

Beecher swallows. "If you think I should." 

"Sure. Get you patched up. After all--I plan on keeping you for a _long_ time, sweet pea." 

Beecher flushes at the words. Schillinger smiles and hands him his pants. 

9 AM. 

Halfway to the infirmary he can't walk any more; he leans against the wall and says "please." 

The officer--Wittlesley--a _woman,_ he can't even imagine what it's like for her here--looks annoyed for a second, but eases when she sees his face. "Gonna make it?" 

"I just need to--" rest, he's going to say, but he sobs instead, curling up against the wall, hands to his forehead, _of course he's not going to make it._

And he sobs again and breathes in huge, shuddering strokes. He opens his eyes, hoping--well, she's a woman. She should--feel for him. Sympathize. Tell him what to _do_. 

The look on her face is the same as it was on Ortolani's. _The headline reads_ : _I don't give a shit about you._ There's just a little less _fuck off_ in her body language, that's all. 

"Ready to go?" she asks. 

Beecher puts one foot in front of the other. 

The infirmary is very white and smells like bleach and shit. Half a dozen guys turn to look at him. 

On the far bed, under a frosted window, is the Hispanic man who was stabbed behind Beecher when they were admitted. Beecher can't look away; the man looks dead. Two days and _this_ \-- 

A woman in a white lab coat strides across the room. "Is it important? We're busy today," she asks, looking at the officer and not Beecher. 

"He was raped," the officer says quietly, and she's so blunt about it that Beecher jerks in surprise. It seems like there should be a euphemism. A code. "Probably. He's in Em City, so tell McManus if he says anything." 

"Right; bring him back to the office," the doctor sighs. 

It's like he's not even here. He looks at the Hispanic dead man as he's pulled back into an office. 

"I'm Dr. Nathan," she says as Beecher stares at the dead man. "Let's take a look." She closes the blinds and Beecher starts; he looks at her. 

"What?" is all he can say. 

"I need to _see_ how you're hurt," she says. 

She's pretty like his wife. She has hair like his wife. Her skin is darker, but she's looking at him--sympathetically--just like Gen. "Yes," he says, feeling something unwind inside him; "I need help." 

He bends over--naked again, he's been naked in company more these past few days than ever in his adult life and what's alarming is that he's starting to get used to it--and she puts on antibiotic burn cream and a bandage and he starts to feel better. 

She unlocks a cabinet. "I'm going to give you something for the pain," she says. "I want you to come back once a day so I can check on the burn and give you another." 

"How often do I take it?" he asks. 

She turns back, pill bottle in her hand, face shut down. "Once a day, when I _give_ it to you," she says. 

_Obviously._

He's in prison. 

"Right," he says. 

She shakes one pill out into her hand and her eyes flicker over him. Assessing him. 

" _Maria_... It _hurts,_ " someone groans outside. 

"Shut the fuck _up_ you whiny mother _fucker,_ " someone else growls, and Dr. Nathan doesn't bat an eye. She gives Beecher the pill and a glass of water and watches as he swallows it. 

"Do you want to tell us who did this to you?" she asks. 

He looks at the frosted, barred windows of her office. "You _know_ who did this." 

"Maybe. But if you don't _say_ it, we can't do anything about it." 

Frosted windows. Barred. There's no way out; you can't even _see_ out. He's in here with fourteen hundred convicted criminals and nobody to keep him safe. 

Except Schillinger. 

If he feels like it. 

"Funny," he says, so softly he can barely hear himself, "I can't actually remember." 

She sighs. "Why am I not surprised... If you change your mind, talk to McManus. He'll listen." 

He listens, and yeah, he must have _fucking known_ when Beecher asked to be transferred. 

There's a red-hot flare in his stomach. He feels sick. 

Dr. Nathan leans out the door. "Officer? Take him back to Emerald City." 

10 AM. 

He's fuzzy as he walks back to his cell. He feels padded. It's the codeine. 

The buzzer blares overhead and the door opens--and _every_ fucking person in the common area turns to look at him. 

Every. Fucking. One. 

Then they look away, even Schillinger. They're clumped up in little knots: Schillinger and the other Nazis around the televisions, the Mafiosos around a table holding cards, the Hispanic guys around another set with checkers, the black guys upstairs. The guys in gang clothes are clumped around one cell while the guys in hats--Muslims, he thinks--are clustered in another. 

"Don't block the stairs," the guard escorting him says to the group of Hispanic guys, and they turn and shoot the guard--and Beecher--a look of pure resentment as they cluster in tighter. 

Beecher doesn't even care how much his ass hurts as he rushes upstairs. He doesn't know what's going on, but it makes his skin crawl. 

It's quiet, he realizes, for the first time since he's been there. Anyone talking is talking in a whisper. 

Rebadow widens his hound-dog eyes as Beecher tops the stairs and beckons slightly. An invitation. How... un-prison-like. He diverts his path and rushes into Rebadow's cell. 

Pauses. Looks out the glass door. "What is going _on_?" he asks. 

"Kareem Said." Rebadow makes a small noise in his throat and sits on the bed. "You look like you could use a drink." 

"Oh _Christ_ yes," Beecher gasps. 

"Here." And Rebadow holds up a box with two brownies left in it. 

"You... are these?" 

"They're perfectly normal brownies," Rebadow says. "And the closest you'll get to a martini legally in Oz." 

"Oh," he says. "Thank you." He takes a brownie and it's a little dry, maybe stale, but it's _delicious_. 

He leans against the bed frame next to Rebadow. He doesn't even want to think about sitting down. Rebadow takes the other and chews it slowly. "Have you ever dropped magnesium into water?" Rebadow asks. 

"Sure, in chemistry class. It explodes." 

"Said is the magnesium. We're the water. I'm sorry that your period of adjustment is so hard, but it's only going to get worse for all of us." Rebadow rolls his eyes up towards Beecher, brownie in his hand. 

Beecher doesn't know what to say. 

This is a guy who talks to God, after all. 

The gangsters move downstairs as a group. "It's safe. You should get some sleep," Rebadow says. 

"Thank you. For the. Thank you." 

Rebadow takes another bite of brownie as Beecher sidles back to his cell. 

11 AM. 

Beecher woke up with a sharp pain in his backside. When he pulled the covers back and looked, he saw a small dog biting him there. 

"Is this your dog?" he asked Genevieve. 

"No," she said, leaning over him. 

"It looks just like your dog." 

"But it's someone else's," she said, pulling it off him and petting it. "See?" 

"Oh." Of course. He should have noticed. 

She kissed him. "I made waffles." She picked a tray up from the floor and set it on the bed. The kids followed, Gary and Holly and little Harry, who was walking, one determined foot after the other. 

"You make the best waffles," he said. She always made them from scratch and they had them with strawberries and cream. 

When he looked up from his waffles, his children were taller: Gary almost a teenager, Holly twelve in her soccer clothes, Harry at least seven with his pacifier still in his mouth. "Why are you doing that?" he asked. 

"We have to," Holly said. 

Gen put her hand on his arm. "Don't yell," she whispered. 

"I'm not yelling, I just want them to stop." 

"Toby, _please_ ," she said with tears in her eyes. 

He looked at Gary and Gary looked just like him when he was in college. "Stop that!" he said. 

Gary's mouth twisted up and he was a little boy again. "I'm sorry, Daddy," he said. "I won't do it again." 

He feels like shit. "It's okay, son," he says, but Gen is crying beside him. Crying and crying. 

Crying so hard she can't even hug him before the bailiff takes him away. 

12 PM. 

Shouts send him back into himself. He's sweaty, his mouth is dry, he has to pee. 

He staggers out of bed and takes a leak, feeling unbearably self-conscious about the fact that the walls are _glass_. Everyone can see everything. 

Everyone... can see everything. Everyone knows everyone. The inmates know the guards, the guards know the inmates, it's like a big fucked-up family in here. 

Or a high school that never lets out. 

McManus _knew_ why he wanted to change cells. He _knows_ Beecher is no Nazi, he _knows_ what Schillinger is like. He didn't say a word--just asked if he had any complaints against Adebisi. Any special reason for switching. 

_And by the way, do you know your new cellmate wants you to be his woman?_

Beecher's stomach hurts. There's a tight little knot in his abdomen that squeezes his guts whenever he thinks of McManus and his bland balding face. 

He has his dick in his hand and he's not a woman. He's-- 

Shouts again. He puts his dick away and looks out the window over the common area, where a phalanx of men is setting out little rugs. Right--Muslims. They pray. He thinks he's seen those rugs in cells before. 

Schillinger and some other Nazis stroll casually around the praying men. They don't quite kick at them, but a guard--Wittlesley, again--stands before them with her arms crossed, and they shrug and back away. They clump up and stare. 

_Allahu akbar_ is the prayer. God is great. Beecher looks at Rebadow's cell, but he guesses God isn't available to confirm or deny. 

1 PM. 

And Cathy Rockwell slams into the glass. She stares at him with her wide blue eyes. He sweats and clutches the pillow under his cheek, seeing his reflection in the glass when he opens his eyes, seeing his crime on the inside of his eyelids when he closes them. 

2 PM. 

And he stares into her eyes as the light fades. 

3 PM. 

And he doesn't hurt, not even a little. Allahu akbar, Beecher thinks, God is great. He floats in a soft, cottony haze. 

It's not a prison, it's a big... comfy... hand. God has him in the palm of his hand. He's seeing his crime in the reflection of God's pinky ring. 

He laughs out loud. Nobody listens. 

4 PM. 

"Fifteen years," Judge Lima says, and Beecher is naked in the courtroom, naked in front of everyone, and he's so embarrassed, and Gen cries, and cries, and cries. Cries so hard she doesn't see his hand when he holds it out to her. But she doesn't see when the bailiff, who is also Schillinger, bends him over the pressboard table. 

Her eyes are closed. He comforts himself with that. 

5 PM. 

**"COUNT!"**

It's a loud yell, but he doesn't really process it until the officer bangs on the door. Oh. It means he needs to stand in front of his cell again. 

"97B412, Tobias Beecher! 92S110, Vern Schillinger!" 

With Schillinger beside him. 

He's not stoned any more. He's wide awake. 

"Feeling better?" Schillinger asks as they're locked inside. 

Beecher staggers onto his bunk. He realizes suddenly that he's _starving._ "Not really," he says. 

"Did the doctor patch you up?" 

"It's not going to heal in one day," Beecher says, staring at the springs supporting the mattress over his head. 

"Well, we've got time. You've got four years, at least." 

He can't. 

Breathe. 

Can't. 

Breathe. 

Until he does, to say "yes, sir." 

6 PM. 

Schillinger sits in the single chair with his feet propped up on the end of Beecher's bunk and reads a book. A history book. On World War II. 

Probably trying to figure out where the Fuhrer went wrong. 

Beecher is trying to sleep--he's exhausted--but every time he manages to relax, Schillinger turns a page and a fresh bolt of fear shoots down his spine. And he doesn't even know what time it is, because he hasn't got his watch. 

There's a clock on the guard tower. If he stretches a little, maybe he can see it. 

His foot brushes against Schillinger's and he jerks away and curls up under the blanket. 

"Sweet pea! Don't be in such a rush! People will talk." 

He curls his arm around his head and tries to sleep. 

7 PM. 

"So, Tobias." 

"Yes?" 

"How many years of school you need to be a lawyer?" 

"Uh." He imagines, briefly, Schillinger in a suit debating tax law with Beecher's father, and blinks. "First you need a four-year bachelor's degree, then three years in law school." 

"You must know a lot." 

"I was an economics major. I know a lot about money." 

Schillinger laughs. "How about Muslims? You know about them?" 

"I--a little," Beecher says. He risks a glance at Schillinger and sees that he's staring through the wall of the cell over Beecher's head. "It's the youngest of the world's major religions, started by the prophet Mohammed in--uh--" He can't remember. "Around 600 AD." 

"What do they want?" 

Beecher shifts, looks over his pillow across the way and sees the new guy, Kareem Said, kneeling on the floor of his cell and praying. "I guess they want to be better people, so that they can get into heaven," Beecher says. "Islamic heaven is a whammy of a motivator." 

"Yeah?" 

"It's a pleasure garden staffed by beautiful women," Beecher says. "Sort of--the opposite of Oz." 

Which makes Oz hell. 

Schillinger laughs. 

"There are five pillars of the faith." Beecher stops for a minute and rubs his head, trying to think through the hunger and the pain and the stress. "The first one being faith in God... then there's prayer, charity, pilgrimage to Mecca, and..." 

God. Sitting in that class his senior year in college--he thought he might use it to impress a girl on a date. 

"Ramadan," he remembers. "Fasting during Ramadan to purify your soul." 

"They don't eat, and that makes them better people?" 

"Many Christians do the same thing." 

"Nobody in the church _I_ went to." Schillinger glares at him. 

Church of Hitler, Beecher thinks. 

"Let's play some cards," Schillinger says. 

8 PM. 

Beecher has a ten. Schillinger has a nine. 

Beecher has a five. Schillinger has a three. 

Beecher has a queen, and Schillinger has a six, and that's it, those are the last cards, and Beecher wins the game, just like he won the last three. Ha! Things are going his way. 

"Well. Look how lucky _you_ are," Schillinger says. 

"Yes, sir," Beecher replies, feeling a little smug. 

"War is a game of luck. All it teaches us is how to turn over cards. That's why I never let my boys play games like that; I want them to learn strategy, to be _leaders._ " 

"Oh." 

"Of course, that doesn't mean they can't be fun." Schillinger ruffles his hair. "Why don't you shuffle us out another game?" 

He shivers under Schillinger's hand. "Yes, sir." 

9 PM. 

Schillinger yawned and climbed into his bunk ten minutes ago. Beecher hears pages turning again, though, so he's not asleep. It's--Beecher still finds it strange to think about the daily rhythm of anyone other than his wife. He didn't even have roommates in college. 

Beecher thinks of Gen, thinks of her sitting in the rocking chair in their bedroom with her nightgown open to her waist nursing Gary. She's such a good mother... 

The guard passes the cell, raking Beecher with his eyes. Beecher stares back: for guys paid to watch what's going on in here, they really don't see much. 

10 PM. 

The lights go out with a bang. Most of the lights, anyway. The guard station is still lit up. 

Dark enough to sleep. Light enough to see what you're doing. 

He spent his first night in Oz dreading, and then his second night screaming. This is his third night. He looks at the glass door and sees his own reflection looking back at him. Just him. And Schillinger, looking down. 

He's not dumb enough to be surprised when Schillinger's feet hit the floor. 

End. 

 


End file.
